I understand what you are saying, but depression happens to be a not good example.
Depression is a necessary “feature” in the control system that physiology uses to modulate its hedonic state. During a near death physiological state, the state one can attain while running from a bear, where to be caught is certain death, physiology induces a state of euphoria. The near death physiological state has to be euphoric, so that organisms can willingly run themselves to death. This is the source of the euphoria of autoerotic asphyxiation (what killed David Carradine). That state has to be euphoric because all the “safeties” that prevent organisms from damaging themselves (pain, fatigue, extreme pain, extreme extreme pain) are turned off to allow even a very slim chance of escaping from a bear. If organisms could enter a euphoric state easily, they would, and would risk death uselessly. There must be an aversive state between “normal” and the euphoric near death state. I am pretty sure this aversive state is depression. I say that as someone who has been depressed most of my life, and has been on antidepressents just about half my life now, so I do understand depression.
It isn’t that depression is something good, but that an organism that can support a depressive state has superior survival characteristics to one that cannot. So evolution has configured all organisms to have the equivalent of a depressive state.
I think the reason people imagine there is a “silver lining” to depression is because depressed people are easier to control and bullies feel less guilty when they bully someone into a depressed state because they fantasize there is a “silver lining” to the depression.
That state has to be euphoric because all the “safeties” that prevent organisms from damaging themselves (pain, fatigue, extreme pain, extreme extreme pain) are turned off to allow even a very slim chance of escaping from a bear. If organisms could enter a euphoric state easily, they would, and would risk death uselessly. There must be an aversive state between “normal” and the euphoric near death state. I am pretty sure this aversive state is depression.
I’m not following this at all. Why isn’t the aversive state “pain, fatigue, extreme pain, extreme extreme pain”? If you were running yourself to death, I’m pretty sure that’s what you’d feel before the euphoria kicked in, not depression.
Blueberry, pain, fatigue, and depression signal different things. Pain signals local injury, fatigue signals not enough ATP in your muscles to do what ever it is you are trying to get your muscles to do, depression signals more of a global energy crisis, particularly in the brain. These things are to limit physical activity to reduce the damage that the physical activity will cause.
The “energy crisis” of depression is in the brain, but the current experience of depression is more of a problem with malfunctioning of the control pathways that regulate brain ATP levels. Low ATP in the brain is associated with depression. There are some other examples, vascular depression which is common in the elderly, there is reduction in ATP levels in the brain coincident with reductions in brain perfusion. Fix the perfusion and you fix the depression (and vice-versa because they are coupled). Bipolar disorder has similar low ATP status. ATP status is extremely well regulated. Depression and allied mental disorders are disorders of that regulation (which is very poorly understood).
Alternate notion about depression: creatures capable of thinking about alternatives need a “sounds like a good idea—do it” mechanism and a “sounds like a bad idea—don’t do it” mechanism.
If the “sounds like a bad idea” mechanism is running too strongly, you get depression and/or akrasia. If the “sounds like a good idea” mechanism is running too strongly, you get mania.
NancyLebovitz, yes, almost exactly. My hypothesis of bipolar disorder is that the trade-off of normal-depression-mania is the normal-depression-euphoria of the near death metabolic state when one is running from a bear. I think what the euphoria does is more change the “discount rate” that organisms apply to their actions, immediate gratification vs long term gratification. When you might be dead in a few minutes (because the bear catches you), the time-value of risk-reward has different values. Any risk is worth taking if it might extend your life beyond the certain death of the bear catching you.
I suspect that this is the same physiology behind the stimulant drugs of abuse; it triggers the same near-infinite discount rate, where continued good health a few days from now is worth nothing compared to the next injection from a shared needle which might have HIV in it. I think this is why deterrence has been shown to not work to deter drug abuse. The lives that addicts already live are worse then what you can impose on them as punishment. If the addict lifestyle doesn’t deter drug abuse, certainly the relative cake-walk of a stay in prison isn’t going to.
The changing of the “discount rate” isn’t under conscious control. It can’t be because non-conscious human ancestors needed to do the equivalent calculations too (so it it from deep evolutionary time), and there isn’t time (or cognitive capacity) to do those calculations consciously.
I think this changing of the discount rate is part of the problem of zero-sum bias. To an addict, an injection of drug from an HIV infected needle is worth dying for. The shifting of the discount rate occurs on a continuum. Lesser amounts of stress shift it less. Trigger an infinite discount via stress-induced bullying, and victims will agree to anything to get the bullying to stop. I think this is a common ploy of some politicians.
Extreme metabolic stress is euphoric, as in autoerotic asphyxiation and I think the runner’s high. I think exercise addiction is addiction to the euphoria of extreme metabolic stress.
Euphoria is a complex physiological state. I presume that for simple drugs to induce euphoria, they are actually triggering already existing pathways.
Let’s just say for the sake of argument that depression does have an evolutionary basis as you say (it would actually be more surprising if it didn’t have any such basis). From my perspective this wouldn’t automatically make it worth preserving if we were in the hypothetical position to eliminate it. That something is evolved, or has an evolutionary basis, does not automatically decide its goodness or badness—evolution has given us many characteristics that we would rather change were we in a position to do so.
alexflint, I agree with you. Just because something has evolved (or may have evolved) is not a reason to continue it.
I suspect that violence against women may have an evolved component (to reduce maternal death from cephalopelvic disproportion), but now cannot be justified for that because there are much better options (medical c-section). There may be other “features” of violence against pregnant women (epigenetic programming of the fetus to be more violent via the ’cycle of violence”), but I think the downsides of violence against women greatly outweighs any positives that may have existed during evolutionary time.
I think if we could eliminate violence against women we should do it. What ever positives there might be for individuals, for society it is a net negative (in my opinion).
Induced miscarriage, preterm birth, low birth weight. There is evidence that all of these are associated with violence against women, and also violence against women by her mate increases while she is pregnant. I looked and was unable to find any data suggesting any non-human males commit violence againt a female while she is pregnant with his fetus.
Humans are unique among mammals for the degree of placental difficulties, birth dificulties and cephalopelvic disproportion they have.
I understand what you are saying, but depression happens to be a not good example.
Depression is a necessary “feature” in the control system that physiology uses to modulate its hedonic state. During a near death physiological state, the state one can attain while running from a bear, where to be caught is certain death, physiology induces a state of euphoria. The near death physiological state has to be euphoric, so that organisms can willingly run themselves to death. This is the source of the euphoria of autoerotic asphyxiation (what killed David Carradine). That state has to be euphoric because all the “safeties” that prevent organisms from damaging themselves (pain, fatigue, extreme pain, extreme extreme pain) are turned off to allow even a very slim chance of escaping from a bear. If organisms could enter a euphoric state easily, they would, and would risk death uselessly. There must be an aversive state between “normal” and the euphoric near death state. I am pretty sure this aversive state is depression. I say that as someone who has been depressed most of my life, and has been on antidepressents just about half my life now, so I do understand depression.
It isn’t that depression is something good, but that an organism that can support a depressive state has superior survival characteristics to one that cannot. So evolution has configured all organisms to have the equivalent of a depressive state.
I think the reason people imagine there is a “silver lining” to depression is because depressed people are easier to control and bullies feel less guilty when they bully someone into a depressed state because they fantasize there is a “silver lining” to the depression.
I’m not following this at all. Why isn’t the aversive state “pain, fatigue, extreme pain, extreme extreme pain”? If you were running yourself to death, I’m pretty sure that’s what you’d feel before the euphoria kicked in, not depression.
Blueberry, pain, fatigue, and depression signal different things. Pain signals local injury, fatigue signals not enough ATP in your muscles to do what ever it is you are trying to get your muscles to do, depression signals more of a global energy crisis, particularly in the brain. These things are to limit physical activity to reduce the damage that the physical activity will cause.
The “energy crisis” of depression is in the brain, but the current experience of depression is more of a problem with malfunctioning of the control pathways that regulate brain ATP levels. Low ATP in the brain is associated with depression. There are some other examples, vascular depression which is common in the elderly, there is reduction in ATP levels in the brain coincident with reductions in brain perfusion. Fix the perfusion and you fix the depression (and vice-versa because they are coupled). Bipolar disorder has similar low ATP status. ATP status is extremely well regulated. Depression and allied mental disorders are disorders of that regulation (which is very poorly understood).
Alternate notion about depression: creatures capable of thinking about alternatives need a “sounds like a good idea—do it” mechanism and a “sounds like a bad idea—don’t do it” mechanism.
If the “sounds like a bad idea” mechanism is running too strongly, you get depression and/or akrasia. If the “sounds like a good idea” mechanism is running too strongly, you get mania.
NancyLebovitz, yes, almost exactly. My hypothesis of bipolar disorder is that the trade-off of normal-depression-mania is the normal-depression-euphoria of the near death metabolic state when one is running from a bear. I think what the euphoria does is more change the “discount rate” that organisms apply to their actions, immediate gratification vs long term gratification. When you might be dead in a few minutes (because the bear catches you), the time-value of risk-reward has different values. Any risk is worth taking if it might extend your life beyond the certain death of the bear catching you.
I suspect that this is the same physiology behind the stimulant drugs of abuse; it triggers the same near-infinite discount rate, where continued good health a few days from now is worth nothing compared to the next injection from a shared needle which might have HIV in it. I think this is why deterrence has been shown to not work to deter drug abuse. The lives that addicts already live are worse then what you can impose on them as punishment. If the addict lifestyle doesn’t deter drug abuse, certainly the relative cake-walk of a stay in prison isn’t going to.
The changing of the “discount rate” isn’t under conscious control. It can’t be because non-conscious human ancestors needed to do the equivalent calculations too (so it it from deep evolutionary time), and there isn’t time (or cognitive capacity) to do those calculations consciously.
I think this changing of the discount rate is part of the problem of zero-sum bias. To an addict, an injection of drug from an HIV infected needle is worth dying for. The shifting of the discount rate occurs on a continuum. Lesser amounts of stress shift it less. Trigger an infinite discount via stress-induced bullying, and victims will agree to anything to get the bullying to stop. I think this is a common ploy of some politicians.
Is there information about how it feels to run from deadly danger? I don’t get the impression it’s a euphoric experience, but evidence would be nice.
Extreme metabolic stress is euphoric, as in autoerotic asphyxiation and I think the runner’s high. I think exercise addiction is addiction to the euphoria of extreme metabolic stress.
Euphoria is a complex physiological state. I presume that for simple drugs to induce euphoria, they are actually triggering already existing pathways.
Thanks for taking the time to reply daedalus.
Let’s just say for the sake of argument that depression does have an evolutionary basis as you say (it would actually be more surprising if it didn’t have any such basis). From my perspective this wouldn’t automatically make it worth preserving if we were in the hypothetical position to eliminate it. That something is evolved, or has an evolutionary basis, does not automatically decide its goodness or badness—evolution has given us many characteristics that we would rather change were we in a position to do so.
alexflint, I agree with you. Just because something has evolved (or may have evolved) is not a reason to continue it.
I suspect that violence against women may have an evolved component (to reduce maternal death from cephalopelvic disproportion), but now cannot be justified for that because there are much better options (medical c-section). There may be other “features” of violence against pregnant women (epigenetic programming of the fetus to be more violent via the ’cycle of violence”), but I think the downsides of violence against women greatly outweighs any positives that may have existed during evolutionary time.
I think if we could eliminate violence against women we should do it. What ever positives there might be for individuals, for society it is a net negative (in my opinion).
I’m not sure what your line of thought is about violence against women. Induced miscarriage?
Induced miscarriage, preterm birth, low birth weight. There is evidence that all of these are associated with violence against women, and also violence against women by her mate increases while she is pregnant. I looked and was unable to find any data suggesting any non-human males commit violence againt a female while she is pregnant with his fetus.
Humans are unique among mammals for the degree of placental difficulties, birth dificulties and cephalopelvic disproportion they have.